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'Dracula The Dirty Old Man' (1969)

Hidden gem or horror flop?

Dracula: The Dirty Old Man, a classic horror comedy or a must avoid flop? Having recently viewed this overlooked film from the late 1960s, I weigh in with my opinions and give you a base review. Is this film some hidden gem? Or is it something you should avoid entirely? Read on to find out the bare bones of this film.

So I am an avid horror nut, who also fancies a decent comedy from time to time. When I heard about a movie that combined classic horror with slap stick comedy, I was almost sold. It probably didn't help that this film is also billed as a raunchy 1960s skin flick also. Yes, I know I just oinked a bit there. So after scouring the web to find a legal free copy, yes legal, I finally found what I hoped was some hidden treasure to share with my horror snob friends. What I actually found was, well, just read the rest of the review.

The story seems solid, if not campy. It follows an old Dracula-style plot line. Dracula moves to America in a modern age at the time, and creates a lycanthrope servant to do his bidding. What is his bidding, you wonder? Well, to kidnap beautiful young women of course!

Now I could just leave things there, but I want to really point out some issues with this movie. Yes, it's from a different time, things back then were considered more acceptable, and all that rot. Really though, there still isn't an excuse for where this movie goes with its comedy spin. Dracula being Transylvanian obviously would have a stereotypical yiddish accent right? Yes, Dracula is throwing out all kinds of oi veys, and jokes about how much things cost. They basically pin down the racist view of the classic money hungry Jew. So right there it struck a chord of "not okay" with me.

Once you get past the horribly racist portrayal of Dracula, what you see he is your standard vampire. In fact he does all the basic vampire things. He lives in a deep, dark cave, can hypnotize people with his gaze, turns into a bat, and drinks blood from women's breasts. Wait, what? Yes, you read that right Dracula drinks blood straight from the tit. Around the nipple region specifically, in fact. Once he gets a young woman home to the cave, he chains her to the wall, rubs her down, pulls down her top, and bam, straight to the titty. I can understand the showing him as a monster who preys on women. That could at least explain his grope-y grope hands and so on. The fact he drinks blood from the breast, really just feels like an excuse to show nudity.

Now we move onto the lycanthrope, which is called a Jeckylmen in this film. In fact their name is Ernie Jeckylmen, another play on humor at the expense of Jewish people. A car salesman and playboy by the light of day, but at night, watch out. He transforms fully into Ernie Jeckylmen the horny werewolf! That's right, the horny werewolf. As this ravenous creature, his job is to find young and beautiful women to take back for Dracula to feed on. Such as this random masturbating lady we haven't seen until that part in the movie.

Now Jeckylmen have this magic power to make women become overcome with desire that it never shows being used. Why show him use this magical seduction power anyway? Rape is so much more comical, right? Yeah, once again, you read that correctly. Rape is used as a comedy device. So at this point, I began to consider pouring lighterfluid onto my laptop and ending it. Then, I decided I survived being forced to watch two girls one cup—my friends are dicks—I can finish this. So I did, for the review mainly, and so no one will ever watch this movie again. It also got a lot worse, there's about six rape scenes in the film. Necrophilia enters the fray also, due to Ernie getting over zealous. He rips a woman's throat out while in the act and decides to keep going. I have seen Troma films with better taste than this.

So the whole thing boils down to a final scene. Ernie kidnaps and brings his human form's girl friend back to the cave. What ensues next is obviously comedy gold, if you couldn't tell by the review so far. Ernie and Dracula have a "comical" fight where they take turns having their way with her, and pulling each other off to fight over who goes. During this, the girl escapes, somehow Dracula is killed, and Ernie turns back into a human. As a human now, he reunites with his girlfriend and they have a romantic quickie on the bed she was just assaulted on the end.

Seriously, this movie is utter trash. Not only is it horribly written, but the levels of offense are off the charts. The plot makes hardly any sense when you add it all together. The casual racism is some of the worst I have seen in a movie even from that era. I still cannot get over the fact they use rape as a comedy device. Nothing about that is funny; it's traumatic and horrid. How could that be funny at all? I usually try to find hidden horror gems, but this is more like a flaming bag of dog crap on your porch. Just do yourself a favour and never watch this movie.

Austin Wilson is a geek, gamer, entrepreneur, code monkey, cook, and writer. Currently spending his days gaming, watching horror films, and idly toiling in hospitality management. Also, his name sounds cool in the Tekken announcer voice.